Change

I hate change. A lot. I'm totally miserable in every new place I go for about the first, hm, two years. Okay, not totally miserable but pretty close. It takes me a long time to adjust to new things. I like to think of myself as flexible and adaptable. And I do adapt. But only eventually.

My brother has just got engaged. (I'm not sure its okay to say that on here but given that he is the least faithful family reader of this blog, I think I'm safe for a little while - no telling, Rach and Jed). Of course, we were, and are, all thrilled. He proposed here in Zim, on a mountain at a game park during sunset. We went on a family holiday right after with him and his fiancee (who we all love and are so excited to have in the family). But... I hate change. The week after they both arrived and I saw my little brother with this girl, cosying up on the couch, whispering sweetly and exchanging loving glances, I freaked out a little.

"Josh is gone!" I wailed to my mother, "We've lost him!"

A bit dramatic but, remember, I hate change. My best friend is about to get married as well (they have both timed their weddings in overseas places remarkably conveniently). She's gone and lost, too.

However, the fact that I am able to blog about this means that I have got through the dramatic, oh-woe-is-me stage. It's hard to lose people whether it's to college, to new lives in other countries, to different stages of life, or to other people. But the difficulty of losing them and saying goodbye is rich. So say my wise parents.

I texted my Mum after saying goodbye to Jed on Wednesday: "Why didn't you just stop having kids after me? Imagine how happy we'd be."
"Haha," she replied, "Read CS Lewis, no joy without pain"

Around the same time I proposed a new family rule: no praying out loud before people get on planes.
We have this horrible tradition of sending off the Leaver with a prayer. We all huddle around in a circle (bags in the middle so no one steals them while our eyes are closed). Those who can, pray. The rest of us cry. Then Dad says the blessing and we're all a mess. And of course, someone has a camera and wants to remember this awful moment, eyes and noses red and streaming, miserable and pathetic. Great memories. My proposition was denied. Dad said that the moments of deep sadness are what makes life rich and meaningful.

And I'm sorely tempted to choose to have a slightly less rich life. It's tempting to want to protect my poor heart from all this horribly insensitive change around me. To resent people. To deny sadness. To live detached. But, unfortunately, I think my parents are right. Those moments of sadness and sorrow are rich because of what is behind them, because of what they represent. Friendship, love, joy, companionship, memories, moments, life.

And so, while I hate it, I'll accept it. And ask for lots of help and tissue to get through the adapting part.

What could be worse than leaving?

Remember when I said that the people who make me truly me where gathering in the place that makes me truly me? Well, those people, the ones I love most, are leaving and it’s awful.

For four years I was a Leaver. Every year I would return home in June, like a confused migratory bird moving from the finally-warming North American continent to the cooling-for-winter African one (fortunately much easier to stomach than its Northern counterparts) and every August I would pack up, cry on and off for the last week, drive to the airport with my family, have a tearful farewell that included the Bell family traditional send off where you wave to the Leaver as they go through customs and security every minute or so when they look back with raised arm until they step around the last corner you can see in the distance. Then I would sit at the boarding gate, maybe journal about leaving home and Zimbabwe, board my flight, cry a bit as I watched the Zimbabwean landscape disappear below me, turn on my in-flight entertainment and order a drink. In the following weeks (and months!), I would be homesick, call home frequently, write when I could, enjoy every phone call but feel sometimes feel even worse after them when I couldn’t be there for the sounds of home I could hear in the background or when the conversation could only go so far because they didn’t really know the world I was in. Leaving was painful. The most painful thing I’d experienced in my privileged life. And then, last year, for the first time, I was left.

I watched as siblings--including a youngest brother off to college for the first time--packed and prepared, as they got sad but also excited. I watched and remembered my own times of leaving and saying goodbye to places and people. And on the final day, we all drove to the airport and this time I stood on the other side of the barrier. I watched as the leavers walked away and turned for the traditional farewell, arm raised, again and again, until they stepped around that last corner and were gone. And we got into the car and drove home. And there was no in-flight entertainment to distract, no fancy drink to sip, no exciting new place to move into, no strange new people to meet. There was just home. And us. And a space where there should have been another person, with nothing to distract from the normality and routine that hurt because of that space.

Leaving the place and the people you love is hard and painful. But there is something worse.